Photoshop 7 help.

[Sir Foo KWSN]

I'm making some sigs for gaming clan members and looking for some help. Could someone explain why the colours change?. and what I need to do to keep the quality.

I start off with this image>>>>>>


But when I add it to a movie clip and save optimized as..it looses picture quality. (Note around the ganja leaf)


Another example. From this>>>>


To this>>>

[Isick]

Each GIF image can have only 256 colors. When you saved the still image as a gif the colors were similar enough that the decrease in color count was not noticed (the programs are good about dithering the pixels when they decrease so they blend nicely).

However, when you add the movie clips there are now many more colors than before and when you save it the program tries to give each color a fair shot so it takes away color count from one color gradient and gives it to the others. The only way to fix this problem would be

A) Set the pallet yourself before you compile it

B) Alter the movie clips so they appear to be more similar in color to the background (using color balance or whatever)